


Maybe Things Will Turn Out Okay

by NoisyNoiverns



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Autistic Saren, Childhood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9945599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: Saren wants to go home. But his parents are gone, and Desolas said they can't go back anymore, so he has to make do.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for the m.e. flash fanwork prompt "home"

Saren watched his grandmother pad around the kitchen, left thumb-claw in his mouth. Desolas had said to behave himself while he was away at base for the day, but he wasn’t really sure what that meant. Grandmother’s flat was nothing like their home with Mari and Pari, but Desolas had said they couldn’t go back there, so he just had to “deal.”

He didn’t _want_ to deal. He wanted to go _home._

Grandmother’s flat wasn’t home. She didn’t have a backyard opening into woods, she had a park down the street he wasn’t allowed to visit without her or Desolas to keep an eye on him. She didn’t have space for all of them to have their own rooms, so he had to share with Desolas. She didn’t have any toys for him, so he had to make do with what Desolas had grabbed from his old room.

He guessed it was okay that she let him play games on her omni-tool and terminal, and use her vidscreen, and sometimes she took him to the library a couple blocks over. Those were nice things. The library wasn’t very big, but there was a corner full of blankets and pillows he could nest in.

Grandmother grumbled a lot. She was a grumbly woman, Saren had noticed. Today’s topic was food. She didn’t seem very happy about how much food she had in the kitchen. “We’ll need to go shopping tomorrow,” she was saying now. “You need more food in you, Saren. You’re so small, I wouldn’t think you’re six, just looking at you.”

He didn’t answer, kicking his feet idly against the counter. Grandmother let him sit on the counter when she was working in the kitchen. Mari hadn’t let him do that- she said it “encouraged bad habits.” But Pari hadn’t minded. He’d let Saren sit on the counters all he wanted whenever Mari was at work. He’d let Desolas do it, too.

He snuffled and rubbed at his nasal plates. Grandmother didn’t have any clay. Pari always brought a piece of clay for him to play with while he made them both lunch.

Grandmother glanced up at the noise, then swept over and leaned down so she was at eye level with him. “Something wrong?” she asked, her voice quiet, subvocals humming with concern.

He said nothing. He didn’t want to complain. There was nothing wrong. The other kids at school had picked on him for crying too much, before Desolas came by and set them all straight.

Grandmother waited, and the silence dragged between them, until she finally realized he wasn’t going to answer. Then she sighed. “Miss your parents?”

He hesitated, then nodded, pulling his thumb-claw out of his mouth and dropping his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

There was a snort. “And what for? They’re your parents, and as far as I know, they loved you very much. Of course you’re going to miss them.”

He didn’t look up. He didn’t know what he was sorry for, either. But it felt good to say it.

Grandmother waited a couple moments again, then hummed softly and tapped her brow plate to his. “I miss them, too.”

They stayed like that for a while, perfectly still, before Grandmother cleared her throat and straightened up. “Well, we don’t have much here that will feed the two of us and have enough left over for Desolas, so I think we’ll just have to settle for takeout tonight. Did your parents ever feed you Parnitak?”

He blinked, then fluttered his mandibles. “I don’t know. Mari never said.”

Grandmother _harrumph_ ed and picked him up under the arms, settling him on her right hip. “Well, then you’re in for a treat. It was your father’s favorite. Here, we’ll go call that brother of yours, see what he wants, and if he’s not back by the time it’s here, we’ll just put it in the fridge for him, won’t we?”

He let out a short trill, then leaned up against her, clasping at her torso. “Okay.”

She thrummed a wavering subvocal he was pretty sure was meant to be calming as she walked out of the kitchen and to her terminal in the main room. It was a simple room, neat and tidy and very obviously meant for one old woman, not an old woman, a twenty-something in mandatory, and a small child. Saren tried to avoid being there alone. As strange as it felt having to share a room with his older brother, it was even stranger spending time in a room that seemed to scream that he wasn’t supposed to be there.

Grandmother set him down on the couch and handed him the vidscreen remote. “Here. Keep the volume down while I’m on the comm, I want to be able to _hear_ your brother. And only the channels I said you can watch, got it?”

“Yes, Grandmother.” He stuck his thumb-claw back in his mouth and squirmed into the corner of the couch, drawing his legs up so his knees were almost to his chest. Desolas liked to tease him when he sat like this. He said sooner or later, somebody wouldn’t see him, and sit on him, and he was so tiny he’d be squished immediately.

Saren was pretty sure that wasn’t how that worked. Grandmother had told Desolas to “stop filling his head with nonsense.”

He waited a little while before turning the vidscreen on. Grandmother was old, and Desolas said they had to uh-kom-uh-date her hearing, because it was fading with age. She pretended it wasn’t, but it was obvious to Saren she sometimes had trouble hearing all the sounds her comm made, so he tried to be quiet whenever she was getting it started up.

The comm beeped and chirped pleasantly, and after a couple moments of “connecting” noises, he heard a vaguely harried, “Hi, Parmat.”

Grandmother started explaining what they were doing, and Saren pressed the button to turn on the vidscreen, turning the volume down before it even got a chance to load and start blaring. While he hunted for something he wanted to watch, he let the low murmur of Grandmother and Desolas’s voices wash over him, his head falling back against the backrest of the couch.

It wasn’t Mari and Pari’s house, but it was quiet, and Grandmother let him have his space. Grandmother herself wasn’t as quiet as Pari, but she had the same balance between being stern and being relaxed.

Maybe this place could be home, too.


End file.
